He turned on the computer’s camera and held up the morning’s Washington Post. The lead stories were about the confusing issues unfolding in Pakistan. The main headline read: PAKISTAN’S BARAZANI CONFIRMED DEAD NEW MESSIAH TAKES OVER. Only the center of the front page itself, not the borders and not his hands, was visible in the image.
Entering another long password, he brought up a sub-program that contained four speeches that he had prepared five months earlier.
He clicked on one and opened it. The room was dark, the background anonymous except for a computer-generated image of Pakistan’s green and white flag with the crescent moon and a single star. He was seated on an easy chair, only his head and shoulders visible. His face was almost completely covered by a kaffiyeh, his eyes in deep shadows. The image he presented was meant to be ominous, and it was.
“My friends, we have reached the first of many way points in our blessed journey together,” he said in English.
He picked up a Washington Post from off camera and held it up. It was dated five months earlier. Haaris clicked on the newspaper and moved it off screen, replacing it with the morning’s front page.
“We are at peace. Across our great nation the guns and bombs have stopped. We are no longer at war with each other or with our neighbors. And yet America still sees us not as equals but merely as a client state.”
His image on the screen let the newspaper fall away.
“Our commerce is back to normal. We have asked the other nations to return their ambassadors and staffs so that we may all continue our peaceful coexistence.
“My dreams for Paradise here in Pakistan continue. Allah has spoken to me with his message of strength.
“Be strong of heart, for the way ahead may be difficult.
“Be strong of mind, for we will face many problems.
“Be strong of arm, for the tasks that we are faced with will seemingly be without end.”
Purely bullshit, Haaris thought. Karl Marx had written that religion was the opiate of the masses. Well, this is exactly what he was giving them.
His speech went on in the same vein for a few more minutes, until in the end he promised that he would be among them. He would be a man on the street, a simple wayfarer on the highways, in the hills, on the deserts, by the sea.
He used a translation program to render his words into Punjabi before taking the speech processor out of his sealed attaché case and downloading it to the program that changed his voice to the same one he’d used on the balcony of the Aiwan.
Ten minutes after sitting down at his desk, he attached the speech to an e-mail — also sent through the remailers to the PTV, Pakistan Television Corporation, the main government-controlled network of stations throughout the country. Within minutes it would be broadcast as a flash bulletin and be rebroadcast dozens of times over the coming days.
Haaris sat back. “The Messiah has spoken again.”
“I don’t understand,” Deb said at the door.
Haaris controlled himself not to overreact. He turned to her and smiled. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“What was that all about?” she asked.
He couldn’t see any anger, just confusion. He got up and went to her. “I wish I could tell you, but it’s stuff for work. We’re doing a disinformation operation, trying to sow a few seeds of doubt about this guy calling himself the Messiah.”
“That was you on the computer.”
“Yes, it was. My idea.”
She looked up at him, searching his eyes for the truth of what he was telling her. “What about the shower you mentioned?” she asked.
To the outside world looking in at them, their marriage must have seemed odd. They were mismatched. And yet it had to be obvious that they were very much in love. Deb believed it. And now it was coming to an end as all things must.
He slipped off his shoes and led her back to their bedroom suite, where in the bathroom he took off her T-shirt and kissed the nipples of her breasts.
“I’d like the water hot,” he said.
“I love you.”
“And I love you too.”
She stepped into the shower and started the water.
He waited for just a second or two then got in with her. She started to laugh because he had not undressed. He kicked her feet out from under her, grabbed her shoulders and slammed her face down onto the raised lip of the shower stall with every ounce of his strength. The side of her head cracked like an eggshelll, blood poured out of the wound and her legs jerked several times before they were still.
When he was certain that she was dead, he went into the bedroom and phoned 911.
“My God, my wife fell in the shower and hit her head,” he cried. “She’s not breathing! I don’t know what to do!”
“Who is calling?”
“Please hurry,” Haaris sobbed. He gave the address then left the phone off the hook, turned on the front porch light and unlocked the door, then went back to his wife.
TWENTY-ONE
It was late when McGarvey heard a soft sound on the stairs outside his Georgetown apartment. He unlocked the door then sat down in the dark in his living room, a cognac at hand, his Walther PPK in the nine-millimeter version on the small table beside him.
After he’d left the White House, he phoned Walt Page’s office and left a message for the director as well as for Bambridge that he’d turned down the president. He told them that he would stick around Washington for the next day or two and then head back to Florida.
He’d not answered Pete’s calls and had dinner alone at a small place a few blocks away down on M Street. Afterward he made a show of drinking too much at the bar before he staggered back home to his third-floor apartment in a brownstone across from Rock Creek Park.
But he hadn’t been drunk then, nor was he drunk now.
He’d phoned Jim Forest at the detective’s home. “How are things going?”
“I was wondering when you were going to call,” Forest said.
He and McGavey weren’t exactly friends, but they did have a mutual respect. Mac thought the kid was a good cop, though sometimes a little too earnest.
“I wanted to give you time to get the autopsy results.”
“You got out of Dodge before I could get to you. A Gulfstream left SRQ for Andrews. I assumed that you were aboard and that you were definitely involved. But the one guy had a forty-five-caliber slug in his head, and you carry a Walther. Mind telling me what the hell you’re involved with this time and who was helping you?”
“I can’t tell you a lot, except those two guys came to kill me, and I think they may be Pakistanis.”
“Holy shit,” Forest said softly. “They rented the boat at Marina Jack up in Sarasota under the name Walter Smith. One of them showed a New York driver’s license and left a deposit with an American Express gold card in the same name. But the rental agent said neither guy’s English was very good.”
“Anything show up in their dental work?”
“Nothing yet. But a coroner’s jury wants to talk to you.”
“Later, once I get something settled.”
Forest was silent for a beat. “Is this about what’s going on right now in Pakistan?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Just tell me that you’re not bringing any more shit down here. I have my hands full as it is. The chief knows that I know you, and he’s asking some very pointed questions. You come back to Sarasota and bring another shooting war with you, we’ll probably both end up in jail.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. A lot depends upon what happens here in DC over the next twenty-four hours or so. Could be it’ll all blow away.”